The quiet achiever
Stephen Rielly
The Age
May 27, 2005
Richmond's faith in Mark Coughlan is paying off, Stephen Rielly reports.Mark Coughlan's game speaks decibels louder than he does. When he isn't playing, Coughlan's assured silences remind people at Richmond of the sort of phlegmatic spirit once eulogised by the likes of Henry Lawson.
"We had four kids and they are all different," says Coughlan's father, Steve. "Mark, he was the quietly determined one."
At Punt Road, it is invariably said of the 23-year-old midfielder that he is a punishingly hard trainer, mentally tough, disdainful of self-importance and quiet.
Richmond's director of football, Greg Miller, chooses the description "self-contained".
"He's a guy of strong beliefs but not one to tell you about them," he says.
Almost 12 months ago, though, Coughlan was silent rather than quiet and neither strong nor sure. The pelvic instability that had then dogged him for almost a year was not allowing him to play. It was instead playing on his mind. The pain crippling the muscles and ligaments on either side of his groin and his lower abdomen had never been more debilitating. His contract was up for renewal at the end of the season and the extended break from the game that he was ordered to take had begun to feed irrational thoughts of alienation, even paranoia.
"Last year, at its worst, I wasn't sure whether it was all in my head; whether I was making it up," Coughlan has admitted.
Coughlan won Richmond's 2003 best-and-fairest award, the Dyer Medal, and yet felt at times last year that the Tigers might not want him. If they did, he reasoned, an offer would surely depend upon a recovery he wasn't at all confident he could make. He had been cursed by the groin complaint osteitis pubis in his first season with Richmond in 2001 and had limped to his Dyer Medal victory two years on with similar symptoms. Last season was the third of four with Richmond in which he was hobbled.
"At some stages last year, I was wondering whether I would ever really get over what I had. I was quite lucky that the club came to me with a three-year deal when they did because things were pretty grim," Coughlan concedes.
"It had been lingering for that long. I really wasn't sure what approach the club would take and to be truthful, I was surprised they offered me three years. Actually, I was a little hesitant about accepting the offer. I mean, for me it was great but because I wasn't sure that I was ever going to get over the problem, I didn't want the club to be locked into an arrangement I doubted I could fulfil."
Miller now admits he was not certain, either. He spoke with the club's medical staff before making the offer that will keep Coughlan at Punt Road until the end of 2007. Miller was sure of Coughlan's dedication to his recovery, just not so sure that a satisfactory recovery was possible.
He was told by the Richmond medicos that given time and good management of his injury, Coughlan could be back.
"That was the first thing I needed to know: physically, was it possible for him to recover?" Miller says.
"From there, I took into account what sort of kid he is, the fact that he was from interstate and needed to be kept from temptation, if you like, that we had an uncertain case with Brad Ottens on our hands and we didn't want two of those issues, and also that three years was a show of faith that would allow him to be patient with his rehabilitation.
"He needed time. It wasn't going to be any good for anyone if Mark rushed."
Coughlan believes that he could not have resisted the potentially career-ending impulse to return to the training track without the peace of mind his new contract brought.
"Had I only had a year left on a deal or signed for one more, I probably would have pushed myself out of the gym and on to the track before I was due to," he says.
As it was, he was barely able to hold himself back. Terry Wallace had replaced Danny Frawley as coach in August and Coughlan saw his exile from the training track until January as an out-of-sight, out-of-mind peril.
"There is no doubt that some coaches, for whatever reason, will have players who will play better under them than others. I had this new coach and I was stuck in the gym, boxing and swimming," Coughlan recalls.
"He (Wallace) was fantastic in coming in and keeping us (Coughlan and others on modified programs) in touch with what was going on out on the track, with the new game plan and all that sort of thing, but I knew that I wasn't making an impression.
"It was hard for him to get a good impression of me when I couldn't train with the group. He actually said to me that it would be hard for me to feel as if I was still a part of the group again until I got out on the track.
"I started running after Christmas and after my first run I felt as tight as ever. I thought to myself, 'Oh, no.' At that point, I didn't know if I could get up for the start of the season and I had to tell Terry that I wasn't sure. I'm certain he was getting frustrated because I hadn't done any training with the group pre-Christmas and here I was suggesting that for all the care and treatment I had been receiving, I was doubtful about getting up for round one."
Miller says Coughlan saw his inability to fully participate and involve himself in what Wallace was starting as a period of isolation.
"He definitely battled with the solitude," he says. "He hadn't played for a while, he couldn't train, the new coach was making his plans and formulating opinions and on top of that he knows he has to re-establish the faith everyone had in him the year before. And people tell you it's just about getting a kick."
Coughlan, as Carlton discovered in round seven and Collingwood did a week later, has returned and because his re-emergence has coincided with the sudden maturation of Shane Tuck, the Tigers have two smacking centre-square players. Coughlan's performances against the Blues and Magpies were his best for the season, his best since 2003. He describes his form in the first six weeks as consistent but not influential. In those two rounds, he was reminded of the player he was, of the player he can still be.
Not that Coughlan's struggles with his unco-operative body are over. He receives intense treatment after every game and three massages a week. Two days before each game, one of the Richmond trainers, Nick Shugg, arrives at Coughlan's recently acquired Elwood home to keep the terrible tightness he knew last year at bay. Coughlan doesn't have a weights partner at the club because he cannot, must not, do what is expected of others. His pre-seasons will always be different, modified, and he must remain sensitive to the merest signs his body may send.
"On-field, I think I can be the player I was again but I accept that I'm going to get little grumbles after games for the rest of my career. That's the reality of it," he says.
"But I'm back playing and feeling a lot better. That was my first goal. The next is to come to the end of the year having played consistently but got there with a strong body back, without any burdens, so that I can roll into next year."
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